Author: Jared Snyder

The topic of Professor Elizabeth McGrath’s talk last Monday called, “Using Distant Galaxies as Cosmic Time Machines” was truly fascinating, and one of the highlights of the speaker series.  In it she explained how we can judge the light that is given off by galaxies in our night sky, much of which is older than Earth itself, to determine how and why galaxies go through the changes they do and how they form.  I think that this use of the past to understand the present is probably the most literal version of the idea, which I believe makes it all the more interesting.

The main goal of Professor McGrath’s studies, at least as she presented it, was to determine how galaxies transform from disk shaped rotating galaxies to spherical clusters of stars with generally random motion.  In order to understand how this metamorphosis occurs, Professor McGrath explained that we must look at the light we are currently seeing from the galaxies that is actually billions of years old in some cases.  One of the most fascinating parts of the talk was when the professor put into perspective just how fast light moves.  She stated that light travels at about 300,000 km/s.  This means that light takes about one second to travel from the moon to Earth, eight minutes from the sun, four years from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, and 2.5 million years from the nearest galaxy.  While this statistic alone is absolutely staggering, the most interesting thing about this idea is that our night sky is not up to date.  We’re seeing the universe as it was hundreds, thousands, millions, and even billions of years ago.  If today the galaxy closest to us was to randomly explode and cease to exist, we wouldn’t know for the next 2.5 millions years.

Another absolutely mind-boggling idea put forth by Professor McGrath was the concept of dark-matter.  Dark matter, as Professor McGrath explained differs from ordinary matter in that it does not give off any light.  It is essentially invisible, yet it is still affected by gravity like ordinary matter.  The halos of dark matter that were created by the big bang were essential in forming the galaxies of the universe because they trapped all of the ordinary matter in their center that would go on to be what those galaxies are comprised of.

While this is interesting in it of itself, I think the most compelling idea pertaining to the existence of dark matter is that there is still so little we as a species know about it.  Yes we know that it exists and has certain properties, but we have no idea what it looks like, how to find it, and how to harness it.  I think that I am so drawn to this idea because we as a people have come so far over our relatively short existence in the universe.  We have developed a vast, high tech civilization, explored parts of space, and yet there is so much out there that we have even begun to scratch the surface of.  It is a bit scary and is one of those ideas that makes you feel minuscule in the grand scheme of our universe.  However, I find it to be exciting there is still so much for us to learn.  I just hope that we as a people will be around long enough to unlock these universal secrets.

Professor Loren McClenachen’s talk on the impact of the past in the study of marine ecology was an eye opening talk on the way we study natural ecosystems.  Most of her talk centered on the decrease in ecological diversity among the reefs surrounding Florida and its southernmost islands.

One of the most interesting parts of the talk was when she discussed and showed evidence of the shrinking size of fish, especially trophy fish that swim around the reef.  She showed pictures of the fish that she took while visiting a fishing boat and its captain.  The fish that they had caught on a “good day” looked big to me, but when she showed the pictures of the fish from the 70s they looked even smaller, and as she moved farther back in years the quantity of fish and the size of each fish was bigger and bigger.  This was especially startling.  We obviously always think of the cost that our actions impose on the life that we can see but not the life that we can’t.  While I am a fan of fishing, it was sad to watch what we as humans have done to an ecosystem that is so important and beautiful.

Another organism that we as a species have had an adverse effect on are sponges.  Professor McClenachen talked at length about how the growth of the sponging industry in the early 20th century has greatly depleted the abundance and types of sponges that exist in our reefs.  The industry started out being dominated by low tech spongers who used tools from the side of canoes to rake sponges off of the bottom of the sea floor.  As technology improved, however, spongers who could afford to were able to use new SCUBA technology to dive down and take greater quantities of sponges off the seafloor.  This caused massive competition in the industry and is the root of the cause for the depletion of the organism.

One of the major points of Professor McClenachen’s talk was the fact that we assume what we see as being “normal” when in reality we are only seeing a snapshot in time of what something looks like and how it should be.  Her example to illustrate this was our study of these underwater ecosystems.

The study and mapping of coral reefs only began 240 years ago, and since then, we have seen a 52% reduction in the amount of coral at those reefs.  While obviously this is not a good number, it is not as alarming as some may think.  However, scientists now believe that the original amount of coral that we believed existed was much, much greater than what was there when we began studying it all those years ago.  In reality, coral depletion is extremely high when we take into account how much coral there was on the Earth prior to onset of our study of the organism.  This is a classic example of us, as a people, assuming that what we know is correct or natural.  in reality, we must step back from what we know and take into account what was there before us.  Not doing so can be harmful and can be conducive to us making false conclusions about important topics

As a government major and someone who is extremely interested in the politics and ideologies behind the Cold War, Professor Streets-Slater’s speech about the Noulens affair was especially fascinating.  What occurred was the arrest of several communist operatives in Singapore sent by the Comintern , which is essentially the international council of the communist party, to Southeast Asia who were meant to act as missionaries, spreading the word of communism, and trying to rally support for the cause in Asia.  Upon the arrest, authorities discovered multiple lockboxes filled with comintern documents with names of a large amount of communists in Asia, their codenames, and all other pertinent information.

Following this, there was a crackdown by Chinese, French, and British authorities whose goal was to stem the spread of communism.  Many times, when a communist was captured by this coalition of anti-communists, the prisoners were sent to China to be interrogated rather than in Europe.  This was done because many of the Western European countries had many laws that restricted how “strongly” they could interrogate those that they held in custody.  China, however, did not have these restrictions, so much of the information was found out there before being sent back to Europe.

The discovery of such a wide-ranging network of communist conspirators, was a massive realization for the imperialist nations like France, China, and Great Britain.  It showed a major threat to colonialism, and led to great fear among colonial, capitalist countries, especially in Southeast Asia.

An interesting aspect of this incident is that it occurred in 1931, well before World War Two and the post World War Two period that many attribute to being the time period that led to the start of The Cold War.  If anything, this story shows us that the roots of the Cold War go much deeper.  It is a narrative that tells us that when we step back and look at a situation, the things that caused it are often times much more complex than what we thought.  In this instance, we let our Eurocentric view of the world convince us that the only true reasons for the beginning of The Cold War came out of Europe.  Instead, when we look at the bigger picture, events were occurring all over the world that led to one of the most infamous, and studied events in modern history.  As Professor Streets-Slater talked about, The Noulens affair is an event that is rarely talked about and to this day only has three articles discussing the situation, including her’s.  I believe that this illustrates this fact.  People are so focused on their preconceived notions of why something is or why something occurs that we fail to look at alternative causes.  History is no exception to this.

So far, I think that this was my favorite speech.  I really loved being exposed to an idea and an event that I, like many others, had never given much thought to.  That is essentially why I took this course, and this talk could not have been a better example.

Carin Berkowitz’s speech last Monday was about the relationship between art and anatomy, and that to understand a science it is often important to understand art.  Professor Berkowitz discussed Charles Bell’s beginning as a professor in London, a city where becoming a doctor was easy and those who came out of medical school there did not receive the same level of respect as those who went to school at some of the more elite, better renowned schools of the smaller towns and cities of Great Britain.

One of the aspects of the talk I found most interesting was the part of the discussion that focused on the importance Bell placed in not just looking at real, physical specimens, but illustrations of parts of the body when studying anatomy.  Bell was an illustrator himself, and he believed that the pictures in the book showed his students details of the body that they could not see when simply looking a dissected body or body part.  He felt this way for a few reasons.  For one, it was hard to acquire dissected bodies, and in their place sometimes needed to use drawings instead of the real thing.  Another major reason is that when observing a cadaver, it is not always easy for a student to know exactly what they are looking at.  A dissected body can sometimes be a bit messy, making it hard to identify certain body parts.  By supplementing this physical hands on learning with drawings, he made it easier for his students to learn about the different parts of the body.

In the same vein as this, I also found the actual content of his illustrations to be extremely interesting.  One of the most well known aspects of Bell’s illustrations was that he gave those who decided to donate their bodies to his studies dignity in his works.  One example of this was the drawing of a man of whom his skin was pulled back revealing the interior of his torso.  Instead of simply drawing the dead man’s face as it sat, he drew a cloth covering the mans face as a way to hide his identity and give him a final sense of dignity.  Similarly, when he did draw the face of his cadavers he often showed them with dignified expressions and in natural, human positions.  Bell’s brother, on the other hand, who was also an anatomist, drew the illustrations of his subjects with the expression of someone who had died on their faces, with their bodies and skeletons often being held up by hooks like slabs of meat at a butcher shop.  Obviously, no one wants their final depiction to be one that makes them look undignified or inhuman.  Bell made sure that he respected his subjects and that the people who studied his books knew that those who had donated their body to this study were people of great dignity.

Bell’s teachings had a lasting impact in the field of anatomy.  For example, medical students at Harvard must take art courses in order to receive their diploma.  This relationship between art and anatomy is one that has and will continue to evolve.

Professor Suegene Noh’s speech last Monday centered around the interactions of singled celled organisms, the competition that goes on around them, changes that these single celled organisms undergo due to this conflict, and the banding together of these microscopic creatures that is reflective of all other living creatures regardless of shape and size.  This topic was unique compared to the other speeches we’ve listened to, because it was more about scientific research and less about literary analysis.  Nonetheless, both ways of studying about our world are able to use the past to tell us about our present and vise versa.  Professor Noh uses her observations on current social interactions between organisms to tell us about evolutionary processes of the past.  Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed this speech.  While the subject matter was complex and dare I say beyond me, I really enjoyed looking at the idea of “The Presence of the past” through the lens of science.

Professor Noh showed that when it is necessary, the amoeba that she was studying, known as Dictystelium Discoideum, which she refers to as simply “Dicty” will form an aggregate band of themselves or a slug.  This slug allows the amoebas to protect themselves during periods of cold temperatures.  Furthermore, Professor Noh was able to study how the amoebas choose which other amoebas are welcome into the slug so that it is better suited to survive times of conflict and change that could be hurtful to the greater aggregate.  Professor Noh tested mRNA abundance in these organisms by looking at the actions of chimeric organisms, or organisms made up of cells with different genetic make ups and comparing that to clonal samples.  What was evident was that the chimeric organisms were far more likely to take part in positive selection, or the action of adding and subtracting cells with genetics that would make it easier or harder to survive respectively.  Some of the genes that this slug will “look for” in other cells are genes that are conducive to high levels of reproduction, motility, and adhesion.  Genes like these will be copied and present in younger iterations of these Dicties.

I found this interesting because even at the microscopic level, organisms look to be surrounded by other organisms that will help them survive, but will not be afraid to make additions and subtractions as current conditions dictate.

I think one of the most apt comparisons to what we see with these amoebas is what humans do when maintaining a company.  A company, big or small, acts as one to make sure that not only it can survive, but that it can be prosperous at the same time.  As markets change and demand for different services becomes prevalent, certain people or whole divisions can be cut and others will be added in their place.  This is similar to the idea that as a Dicty slug’s environement changes around it, it must cut and add cells that make it able to better adapt to these changes.  Just like in the Dicty, there is competition to be at different parts of the company that will make an individual a better asset or better able to remain a part of the organization.

Professor Greta LeFleur’s talk on sexuality and place of origin was another talk that once again opened my eyes to phenomenons that have always been in front of me and visible, but that I have never given much thought too.  The part that I found most interesting was when she talked about how people, specifically women, are characterized based on where they are from and what they look like.

Carl Linnaeus’s designations and classification of people, which examined today would be classified as extremely racist, are still prevalent in much of pop culture.  I decided to read more about Linnaeus and his classification of beings.  He states that, “europaeus was, of course, ‘governed by laws’, americanus was governed ‘by customs’, asiaticus ‘by opinions’, and the African subspecies afer ‘by impulse’*.”  Obviously, Carl Linnaeus, a white, European male would assert that “Europaeus” or Europeans were a people who were governed by laws rather than opinions, customs, or impulse.  This seems to imply that this is a more dignified way of living and that only Europeans seemed to live in that dignified manner.  This is reminiscent of much of the reasoning used by imperialist in their campaigns to “civilize” indigenous peoples.

While almost everyone can agree that Carl Linnaeus’s findings are very out of date and inherently false, the stereotypes that he created almost three hundred years ago are still being perpetuated today albeit in a much subtler manner.  Women of certain races are shown to be more buttoned up and obedient than women of other races.  Some women are often shown to be more modest than others while some are portrayed as overtly sexual.  Much of this is based on the color of a person’s skin and where they or their family came from.  This all relates back to the governing forces Linnaeus prescribes to each classification of people.  As I said earlier in this blog post, this part of the talk was eye opening to me.  The fact that so much of today’s society is still thinking in ways that we as a species thought three hundred years ago is such an odd realization to make yet not surprising.

On a lighter note, I also found it amusing, yet interesting that Professor LeFleur brought up the idea of “Cuffing Season.”  Around the beginning of fall, social media is often flooded with posts and memes about the start of Cuffing Season in which people joke about the fact that this is when many people start relationships.  It is interesting that just a simple change in temperature and climate leads to people feeling pressured to settle down with a partner and start a relationship.  I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing but that it is an act of human nature to designate socially appropriate times to do a a certain thing.  I also don’t necessarily think that there is any compelling reasoning for why this is the case, I just find it to be an interesting wrinkle of the human condition.

 

*David Notton and Chris Stringer

http://iczn.org/content/who-type-homo-sapiens

Dr. Peterson’s talk about the idea of A Priori Knowledge  was incredibly interesting, and a topic I had never given much thought to before.  A priori knowledge, as I know now, is the knowledge of a certain thing whether physical or conditional, without having experienced that certain thing.  Conditionally, someone may not have experienced what prejudice truly is and feels like, but one can understand that it is a bad thing that must be eradicated from this world.  Physically, one may know that they don’t want to get punched in the face even if they haven’t been punched in the face because they have the knowledge that getting punched in the face would hurt.  I have always found these philosophical and slightly psychological terms interesting because I know that I have a priori knowledge without having experienced things that would give me that knowledge, but I never knew that this was an actual phenomenon that can be studied and discussed.

 

Dr. Peterson, like two of our other speakers, focused a sizable portion of his talk on a priori knowledge, or much of society’s lack thereof, and the reasons as to why some refuse to object to or even disregard climate change entirely.  We know through our other talks that climate change affects the less wealthy in our society in a greater way than those who do have great wealth.  Because of this, we see people that have never really had to deal with the effects of climate change argue that it is not a big deal or that it does not really exist at all.  These people lack a priori knowledge in that because they haven’t experienced it they have no knowledge of it.  This is similar to people not experiencing prejudice and then arguing that racism, anti semitism, or any of the like exist.  These people have never had to deal with extremely poor air quality, they have never had to rebuild after experiencing a “once in a five hundred year storm,” or they’ve never seen their crops dry up due to a lack of rain.

 

I believe that working to gain as much a priori knowledge as possible is a goal everyone can and should work towards.  It is impossible to experience everything, but it is possible to become knowledgeable about things that you will never experience.  People must work to understand what it is like to “walk in another person’s shoes.”  We must research, ask questions, and do anything we can so that we are not ignorant of things in this world.  Doing so will lead to a more connected society of people who understand each other whether they’ve been through the same things or not.  Even in today’s society, in which the world is so connected through the internet, social media, cell phones, and incredible transportation we see that people are still unaware of other people’s conditions.  By improving this, we will not only improve relationships between people in our society, but we will be able to accomplish great things such as fighting climate change.

Once again, I was absolutely enthralled with last weeks talk.  Dr. Wai Chee Dimok’s speech brought to the forefront the idea that science and literature can be merged to give ourselves a better understanding of the world and the changes, mostly malignant, that are taking place in our environment today.  The speech brought me back to Dr. Hensley’s speech about the similar matter.  Once again, I was made to think that two things, environmental science and literature, that seem so different can actually work together to improve our knowledge and standards of living on Earth.

One issue in regards to the intertwinement of these two subjects is the fact that science often lacks a human element that encourages people to take a stronger interest in studying the effects of climate change, let alone believe that it is actually happening.  This reminds me of the study of the types of persuasion in rhetoric, namely ethos, pathos, and logos.  Science, while it is rich in its presentation of its findings in regards to logos, or logic, through numbers, scientifically written journals, and scholarly papers, it tends to lack pathos and ethos.  Pathos is an appeal to one’s emotions while ethos is an appeal to a person’s ethics.  These two rhetorical tools are what give an arguments its human element and not cold hard numbers and facts.  While numbers and facts are extremely helpful in presenting an issue to people, they do not do a good job of making people want to act to solve that issue.  For one thing, many people are incapable of understanding cold hard numbers and facts without the greater context of what they mean or what can be done to change them.  Making pathos and ethos an integral part of the presentation of scientific facts to the larger society will cause more people to care about major issues like global warming and will compel them to act because they will believe that it is the right thing to do.

Lastly, just to touch on some of the cold hard facts that Dr. Wai Chee Dimok presented, I found the fact that our world’s bodies of water are becoming more acidic to be fascinating.  This does not only come from the physical things we put in the ocean but also comes from the rising amount of CO2 in our atmosphere.  As CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere, it reacts with chemicals in the ocean to create carbonic acid leading to the oceans rise in acidity.  This is something I did not even realize before coming to the talk, and is just one more reason why people must be encouraged into fighting climate change.  I believe, based on Dr. Hensley’s and Dr. Wai Chee Dimok’s speeches that the addition of a greater level of literary tools into scientific reporting will lead to a society of people that will feel more compelled than ever to do what is right and keep our planet from destroying itself.  We don’t have much time, so we better start soon.

I thought Professor Mukharji’s talk was extremely informative and interesting.  The study of people has always been something I am extremely interested in, and any chance I get to learn more about how we find out who we are at a biological level is a chance I will take advantage of.  Studies about ourselves and our DNA help us to understand where we came from, who our fore-bearers were, and can be helpful in us understanding what type of medical issues we are susceptible to as a way to protect us into the future.

While this can be a positive, there are dangers to the study of such things.  The danger does not lie inherently with the study of who we are, but lies within the misuse use of the information we discover.  Professor Mukharji touches on the fact that the certain genetic studies carried out in India have been used as a way to prove that people with specific traits are better than those without those specific traits.  This is not a novel phenomenon.  The Rwandan genocide, for example, was in part a product of “genetic science” causing clashes between two groups of people.  Much of the justification for slavery hinges upon false assertions based on genetic science.  As someone of the Jewish faith, this issue is extremely important to me because it was also responsible for the justification of the holocaust and the anti-semitism that persists today.

The study of ourselves at a genetic level is and will remain important.  However, if we wish to avoid the atrocities of the past, it is vital that we use the information gained from the endeavor responsibly.  As a Jew of mostly Central European and Russian heritage this, unfortunately, is a concept my ancestors undoubtably understand far to well.

While there is a nefarious side to the study of genetics, there are also many positive aspects to the science.  There is nothing wrong in understanding that we are all different.  All of us come from different backgrounds, with different ancestors, and with different combinations of genes mostly based on where we come from.  No two people are truly the same, and for that reason no two people’s physical bodies are the same.  While this inherently applies to outward appearance, I am alluding to is something that is obviously far more important.  People from different regions and with different ancestors vary in terms of what illnesses they may be more prone to contracting, how they must fight these illnesses, and how doctors can understand what different patients need.

Dr Mukharji touches on this.  While it is evident that certain individuals have used information similar to what Dr. Mukharji discussed in ways that undermine groups of people, this science is key in helping our species as a whole remain healthy and treat our bodies as they should be treated.  While we are all equal, none of us are physically the same, and I believe that it is not wrong to acknowledge that.  By doing so, we accept that we all have different needs and can act accordingly in making sure those needs are met.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Hensley’s talk. One of the aspects of the talk that I found particularly interesting was his section on the frequency of storms as reported by news outlets. He showed article headlines that claimed that the Hurricane Harvey was a storm that would occur only once in 100 years, 500 years, or even, as some headlines stated, 1000 years. However, it is clear that storms as strong or stronger than Harvey are happening even more frequently, some within a few years of each other or even in the same year.

Why does this matter? It shows, through literature, that we have to change the way we think from time to time. In the past, Hurricane Harvey was truly a once in however many centuries storm. Now, this is no longer our reality. Storms like this, because of climate change, have unfortunately become a part of our life as creatures of the Earth. We must not only become accustomed to enduring them on a more regular basis, but we must regard them in a way in which we have never regarded them before.

Dr. Hensley refers to this change in thinking as a “regime change.” In other words, our minds have become so use to something being presented to us in a certain way for such a long period of time, that we can only present it literarily in that way. Now that the nature of this thing is changing, it is our job to convey to other that this is the new reality, and we must act accordingly in dealing with such an issue.

As I edit this entry, looking back on my experience in this class, it is truly remarkable how much we can learn about today by looking at yesterday.  From topics pertaining to sexuality, to underwater ecosystems, and even understanding the creation of our galaxy, the past is sometimes one of the greatest tools we have in understanding almost anything.  However, I think the most pressing issue that we discussed in this course is exactly what Dr. Hensley talked about in his speech, climate change.  While there is so much still left to learn, we won’t be able to learn those things if we don’t change our thinking about climate change.  The crux of Dr. Hensley’s talk was that what we are experiencing today in regards to climate change is unprecedented.  Yes, the climate is and always has been a constantly changing and evolving entity, but it is time to throw out what we know about our climate from the past and start looking to the future.  We can no longer rely on our prior perception of climate phenomenons like “hundred year” and “five hundred year” storms.  it is time for us to understand that there really is no prior literature on what we are experiencing, and must channel all of our energy in the study of our climate and environments into fixing what we’ve broken.  We may not return our environment to its past state, but at the least we can give our species and others more time on this planet.